


The Epoch of Belief (or, alternatively: Betty Cooper is Not a Golden Thread)

by formergirlwonder (orphan_account)



Series: Blue + Gold = Green [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Betty is an amazing sensitive person, But he's been hiding it, F/M, Jughead is an emotional wreck, Jughead kind of guiltily likes it a little (but don't tell Betty), Nobody likes being pitied, Who just happens to hate Tale of Two Cities, for good reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 15:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10250741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/formergirlwonder
Summary: Jughead smiled. “I’m just glad you’re safe,” she continued gently, crossing the distance between them slowly, so she didn’t startle him. But his arms wrapped around her waist all at once, and her arms crossed behind his neck, and their foreheads bumped together, and they stayed there, looking into each other’s eyes. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she repeated again. He pulled her in even tighter, running one hand up and down her back as if to reassure himself that she was real.Post 1x07. Yet another fic where Jughead tells Betty that he's homeless. (Seriously, Riverdale! Does she know? Does she?!?)





	

When Jughead turned away from F.P., Betty walked to meet him. She reached up to cup his face in her hand, asking with her eyes, _are you okay? Will you be okay_?

His eyes said back, _no, not yet_. And then, somewhat more anxiously, _is that alright_?

For answer, she tucked herself into his side, guiding him away from the police station (and trying to ignore the blatant stares of Fred and Archie). His eyes dropped hers, looking somehow harrowed, but his hand had found its way to her upper back. It rested there, still warm despite the frigid air in the interrogation room. But his fingers fisted ever so slightly in the fabric of her jacket as they passed Sheriff Keller's car.

She waited until they were out of sight and earshot of the others before speaking. “Where do you want to go? I can take you back to your dad’s place, we can go get your stuff--”

“Betts--” he broke in, and she fell silent. “I--I need to--you’ve got to listen to me, can we just--go somewhere where we can talk? Alone?”

She stopped walking and faced him, taking him in, the frantic panic etched across every line and hollow of his face, the tension still throbbing through his shoulders. “Juggy, you’ve had a horrible day. Are you sure that--whatever you need to say, can’t it wait? Please? I promise I’ll still be here.”

Jughead's face twisted painfully. “Betty, you don’t understand. I--I’ve got to talk to you, please, I swear I’m fine, alright?”

“Jug, you need a square meal and a long nap, I mean, you’re probably in shock, nobody’s expecting you to be in control of your emotions right now--” she insisted.

“Please,” he urged once more, and his eyes were unexpectedly sober.

“Alright,” she agreed.

He turned his face briefly away from her and swiped ineffectually at his nose. “Here,” she said, standing up on tiptoes so their eyes were level. When he turned around, she made a few passes at his face with her sleeve.

“That tickles,” he said, wrinkling his nose with an expression much more like himself. “You sure you want to ruin your shirt?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she scolded fondly. “I’ll throw it in the wash.”

Jughead smiled. “I’m just glad you’re safe,” she continued gently, crossing the distance between them slowly, so she didn’t startle him. But his arms wrapped around her waist all at once, and her arms crossed behind his neck, and their foreheads bumped together, and they stayed there, looking into each other’s eyes. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she repeated again. He pulled her in even tighter, running one hand up and down her back as if to reassure himself.

Then he let her go, stepping back awkwardly. “We should, uh--get going. You have somewhere in mind?”

She reached for his hand and pulled him along with her. “Um, yeah. I mean, I think my mom’s at home, so my house is out--how about the old tree fort?”

He swallowed convulsively, then nodded. “If it’s not rotten through by now.”

“I saw it when we were looking for Polly. It’s still there, and the floorboards seem solid.” Coming upon that treehouse in the middle of Eversgreen Forest had given Betty a faint burst of hope, that maybe Polly had remembered coming down to the tree fort to fetch her for dinner after a long day of freedom. But the treehouse had been empty.

They turned off the sidewalk and onto the forest road, caught up in their own thoughts. From time to time, Betty caught herself glancing up at Jughead, whose eyes were fixated on some far-distant point. When he noticed her staring at him once, he looked down, smiled, and squeezed her hand.

But he still wasn’t okay. His breathing was still shaky, and his eyes were still wide and glazed-over, and he gripped her hand as if it was capable of sprouting wings and flying away at any moment.

Betty wished for a second that she could borrow Jughead’s gift for comforting with a single touch, for knowing when to talk and when to joke and when to just _be there_ , for smiling in a way that said, _you are not alone_. But she wasn’t Jughead, and she didn’t know how to begin to go about helping him. All she knew was that for some reason, he needed her right now, and she refused to let him down.

The treehouse was a platform nestled between three thick branches of an old oak tree, with walls, a small peaked roof, and steps nailed into the trunk. Betty dropped Jughead’s hand and pitched her jacket up, watching to make sure that it landed inside before she started the climb.

The steps were too close together, really. They were shaped for short, childish legs, not for the gawky limbs of teenagers. Betty wedged herself through the trapdoor and edged carefully into a corner of the room. She was taking up too much of the space, jutting out oddly like Alice in Wonderland after eating the cake.

Jughead’s crown poked up through the trapdoor a moment later, followed shortly by the rest of him. She waited for him to comment on the size of the room, how it had felt so much larger when they were younger, but he still seemed too dazed to do so, nervy in an almost hysterical way. Wordlessly, she closed the trapdoor behind him and patted the space next to her. He stretched out with his back to the wall and his feet spanning almost the length of the room. Betty took a few moments to find a comfortable position, but ended up sitting against the wall as well, with her knees crossed loosely in front of her. Jughead reached out tentatively, and she relaxed into his solid weight, leaning her head on his shoulder. She wasn’t used to this Jughead, who touched her as if he liked having her there, who made his presence known with arms around her waist and hands on her shoulder and thumbs brushing her cheek. All in all, though, she liked this side of him much better than the side that had convinced Archie not to hold her hand, because didn’t he _know_ , girls had the _bubonic plague_. (Jughead had abandoned that rhetoric the instant Jellybean was born, of course, but the damage had already been done. Later, it had come out that he’d just told Archie that because it happened to be April Fool’s Day).

“So,” she asked after a moment, her voice slightly muffled by his coat, “what do you need to tell me?”

She could feel his shoulder tense beneath her head. Whatever it was he had to tell her, it couldn’t be good. “I--I’ve been lying to you, Betts.” His hands gently, but insistently, tugged her up off his shoulder, handling her face like it was something precious. She looked in his eyes, twisting to face him more comfortably. “Listen, the whole time you were there in the interrogation room, I kept thinking you might figure it out, or Sheriff Keller might have told you, or something, and then--”

“Figure what out, Juggy?” she asked, breaking in gently.

“I--I haven’t been living at home. Or anywhere, really. I didn’t want to tell you because--”

“Oh my god, are you okay?” she breathed automatically. He was homeless. This entire time, she’d been worried about her stupid, petty problems, about her mom and pressure at school, and trying to find Polly, and he hadn’t known where he was going to be able to sleep. He’d gone with her to rescue Polly, and she had imagined that there was no place on Earth worse than the Home for Troubled Youth, but at least Polly had had a roof over her head...

“Betts? You’re zoning out on me. Betts, I swear, I’m fine--” he said, reassuringly.

She snapped up. “Jughead, are you really trying to make me feel better? I mean, you’re the one who--”

His hands reached for her again, brushing back a wisp of hair from her face. “The one who doesn’t want you to feel like you failed me in some way. Betts, if I told anyone, the odds were fairly even that I’d end up in the system somehow. At least, that’s what I’d imagined. And with a juvie record--”

“You didn’t think anyone would take you in,” she whispered. “Oh, Juggy, I’m so sorry. Your mom--” She let it trail off as an unspoken question.

“She left last summer with JB,” he answered, tight-lipped, and she let it slide.

She should have known. He had been her friend since before she could remember, and she hadn’t been observant enough to tell beyond a vague, “something-seems-like-it’s-not-quite-right,” beyond a “well, there must be something going on with Jughead’s parents, because he’s spending so much time helping out with the paper, but he probably doesn’t want to talk about it, if it was _really_ bad he would say something, of course,” beyond a tacit complicity, a willingness to let him fuss over her like her personal worries were the greatest tragedies in the world. He'd called her Juliet, but it must have mattered so much to him that they weren’t their parents, she realized suddenly, with a throb of guilt.

“Why did you let me think you were okay?” she asked, having finally figured out a way to phrase “ _why didn’t you tell me_?” in a somewhat less accusatory way.

Jughead took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t want you to do any of-- _this_ ,” he gestured vaguely to the air, probably trying to indicate the hand-holding and co-investigating and kissing and smiles of the last few days, “because you--felt bad.”

Betty felt her nose wrinkle involuntarily. “What? Jugs, I would never--”

“This coming from the girl who thought Lucie Manette should have chosen Sydney Carton?” he deadpanned.

That was a low blow. “ _Juggy_! First of all, Lucie Manette is a horrible character, her romance with Darnay is rushed, I mean, she’s basically just a bunch of vague ideals about womanhood rolled into a package that functions more as a symbol than as a person! But her relationship with Carton is the most interesting thing about her, I mean, Carton cared about her so much, and he made her feel like she was valued as a person instead of a golden thread, and the very least she could have done was give him a chance, instead of just going back to her perfect, dumb life just thinking about how he was probably wishing she cared back--okay, I guess I’m proving your point, aren’t I?” she realized, catching herself before she could start rambling about the function of dualities as a reoccurring symbol in the novel. He smirked, clearly amused by her outburst. “I don’t think of you that way,” she hastily added. “And I would never, ever, do anything for you out of pity. I mean, I thought you were pitying me.”

Judging by the horror currently playing across Jughead’s face, he hadn’t considered that possibility. He took another breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. She watched, fascinated, as his eyes gradually came back into focus. “Betts, would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?”

“Yeah. I would. I wanted to believe that, so much.” What “that” was, she left unsaid, but it was the possibility that he saw her as something besides the girl Archie rejected, someone besides a girl who needed to be thrown a lifeline before she sank. She wanted to believe that he wasn’t just supporting her because nobody else did: she wanted him to support her because he understood.

“Do you?” he asked seriously.

“Now I do. I wouldn’t have before.” ( _before I knew you were struggling too_ , she wanted to say, but didn’t.)

He understood anyway. “I thought maybe if you didn’t know, you might--I mean--” He broke off, scrambling for words.

“Jug, are you sure you’re okay? You don’t have to explain anything--”

“You sound like you’re giving me my Miranda rights. Yes, I understand the rights I have in this situation, Betts.” He sounded flustered, almost to the point of anger. Betty knew how that felt, an unspoken sentence simmering and bubbling until at last it burst forth. He had needed this, badly. “I wouldn’t have told you any of this if it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to lose--I wanted to be equals with you. Just being around you was the best--the only good thing right then--I mean, I know you knew something was up--” (so he had noticed when she suggested they meet at her place for the funeral instead of his) “--I don’t know, it’s just that--maybe I was just sick of people giving up on me.”

Jughead’s father, drinking himself deeper into trouble, forgetting that he had the choice to stop. His mother, who must have left because she stopped holding out hope. Jellybean, who must have left thinking that Jughead loved his father more than he loved her. Archie, canceling their road trip, assuming that it would be fine. Their teachers, watching Jughead’s grades slip, merely assuming that he’d stopped wanting to go to college instead of asking _why_.

“I don’t give up.” It was a promise and a declaration and a challenge and a question all at once. She tried to say more words, but all that would come were fragments, like " _You deserve more"_ and _"I wish"_ and _"I need you"_ and _"let me be here for you"_ and _"Also--"_

But he spoke before she could attempt to string those thoughts together. “Thanks,” he said, having read it all in her eyes anyway.

“What can I do to help?” she asked, a moment later.

He grinned, looking down into her eyes again. “Just hanging out with you helps. Means I don’t have to think about things.”

“I know,” she said, settling down again. “That happens for me, too. It’s like for a second, there’s not a crazy murderer running around. You know," Betty added pensively, "if we’re confessing stuff, I had the weirdest dream last night. Jason came back as a zombie.”

He laughed. “You think that’s weird? Last night, I dreamed that we were a married couple in the fifties, I stabbed Archie in the back, and I got along with your _parents_!”

Betty tucked herself under his arm. “Okay, that’s weird. But, no, seriously, I have awful dreams. I had one where the murderer got me,”

“Same.”

“Where the murderer got you--”

“Same,” he admitted, pulling her in just a bit closer.

“Where the murderer was my dad--”

“Same,” he agreed after a moment. He almost sounded guilty, so she tried to change the mood.

“Where Mrs. Grundy came back and started hitting on me, and I ended up accidentally stabbing her when I tried to fend her off.” That had really happened, actually, for two consecutive nights, until Betty had discovered that dream-singing out of tune music at Dream-Grundy tended to drive her away quickly.

“I shot her, so I think I beat you there. How about this: I had one where _Archie_ was the murderer.”

She froze in shock. “Jughead Jones, you’re kidding me, right? You have to be kidding me.”

Jughead smirked. “Come on, Betts. Even my dreams aren’t that weird.” He seemed for a second as though he wanted to say something more, but nothing came.

After a moment, he added, “I never could have dreamed of this, though.”


End file.
